(The Center Square) – Over-the-counter “rape kits” are still illegal in Washington after a federal judge upheld the state’s ban on Tuesday, but the company responsible says this isn’t over yet.
Leda Health issued a news release following the U.S. District Court’s decision, noting its intention to appeal the ban at a higher level. The Pennsylvania-based company initially sued the state in June after the Legislature banned its over-the-counter sexual assault test kits last year.
State officials concluded that the kits create false hope for victims and issues for investigators; however, Madison Campbell, Leda Health’s chief executive officer, argues otherwise. She called Tuesday’s decision another hostile approach toward survivors and their recovery.
“Denying survivors the right to take their bodies back into their own hands after a traumatic event such as an assault not only denies them of their fundamental rights,” wrote Campbell, who’s also a survivor, in the news release, “but also undermines the integrity of the justice system.”